At home on a few hour reprive from work, heading out again before dawn. I don't immediately see my PHB. It has occured to me there was a passage in it that talks about the virtualness of HP. But apparently that book is still packed away (moved about 3 weeks ago).

I see nobody has posted an EN World link? Hmmm...

http://www.enworld.org/forums/news.php

I make no claim about the current state of those forums. As I stated it's been a long time since i've been on them. And only then the same forums in name since it is under completely different management now.

I had this whole argument planned out in my head, explainning how the probabilities of the d20 system make it more usable for "Heroic-type" games, and the d6 system more suitable for grittier games, but in the end it comes down to this: I already *know* how to play d20, and I'm sick of it already. That was my main draw to SR, in fact, that it had a completely different dice mechanic to go with its completely different feel. If SR goes the way of the Borg--I mean d20--I'd be forced to go play something else like Call of Cthulu... oh, wait, then Deadlands... oh, wait....

I'm not a fan of the OGL concept as I have traditionally viewed each individual game mechanic as having it's own personality rather than a generic set of core rules.

In some instances, it does make sense, but I never liked the generic idea of using the old Champions mechanic for anything non-super hero. It lacked a certain personality, in my humble opinion.

-Siege

and that i fully understand siege. ogl is mostly an effect of looking at open source projects and thinking "hmm, maybe if we are less stringent on allsowing people to produce addons then we can get stronger sales of the main books"

I love the idea that most D20 fanboys have..Well, you don't have to use that rule in your game for it to be D20,you only have to use the D20. I stated in my last post that in the D20 games I have seen.

Also soft body armor will stop bullets more than they will stop knives. look back into the late mid to late 90's. The "bullet proof" vests did little to stop things like knives, and in england the one cop was killed, wile wearing a soft vest,and another lived wile wearing a "hard" vest.

Oh back to my point, yes you can strip away all the bad things from d20,and rebuild it. I know Frank,and I have heard his reasoning why D20 is good.But let's face it, I can see the work it will take to fix shadowrun rules,and the work it would take to fix D20. I can fix the rules in shadowrun on a few pages(maybe a chapter), it would a whole new book to fix d20. Hell maybe even a set of books.

Personally, I love OGL. I just don't like D20 for most of the systems people try to force into it. D&D works great with D20. Good that constantly gets better to the point that enemies that were hard to fight against are now no more than grass blades, unstoppingly powerful evil that becomes more and more in reach of being defeated using teamwork...it's perfect for that kind of game.

DBZ-style martial arts works well with D20. Characters become insanely powerful as they progress, fighting stronger and stronger enemies.

Anything else...doesn't really work. In the real world, anyone can kill anyone else if they have the desire and plan. A 9 year old kid can get a knife from the kitchen and slit the throat of a sleeping James Bond. You can't do that in D&D. It is nearly impossible for a 1st level character to kill an unwounded 20th level character in a single hit using only regular combat unless you use specific rules (1 = auto-failure, in which case you have a 5% chance of killing someone who is tied up and sleeping).

BTW, the only D20 game I've seen that had an even remotely Shadowrun-like magic system was the horrible under-sold and hard to find even though it's still in print The Slayers D20 book (as in the fantasy/comedy anime series The Slayers). You make a skill check to cast a spell you know and take damage depending on the result of that roll.

The Abstruse One

and again i state that hitpoints and the powergrowth seen in D&D and the other d20 products comeing out of wotc isnt the only way that one can handle the game and still use d20 tests and skills. if you want deadly you can have deadly, its just a matter of setting the game up that way. allso, sr dont have rules for slitting a sleeping persons throat, and this have lead to discussion on how to handle it (some say just say they are dead, others go by the damagecode of the weapon). in D&D they have them to make sure that there are no confusion as to what happens from gm to gm.

basicly, what you people are argueing about is that sr should not be turned into d&d and that i fully support. but to say that the basic d20 mechanic only supports high fantasy is a totaly unsupported statement. its more like a defensive rallying cry then anything else.

No, I just have access to the fact that Amazon has apparently hidden the page the book is sold on, the fact that when you do find it, it's one of the cheap we-threw-it-together-in-10-seconds pages with no info about the product, and that I can't find the damn thing ANYWHERE offline. Which really sucks because I like the way the magic system sounds (just going off a review here) and I LOVE Slayers.

Still, there are a LOT of things that keep D20 from working for Shadowrun, but I thought I'd throw that out for people who wanted to know. Plus, anything to plug a cool Slayers product and thus encourage companies to make more to suck up my paycheck

The Abstruse One

It's ridiculously difficult for small publishers to get accurate information on Amazon - at the time Amazon wants solicitation information, most of the product details are so far from finalized it's less than useless, and getting that information updated later... well, there must be a magic trick to it that I've never learned.

You can order the book online at www.guardiansorder.com, or simply take the relevant product information to your local game or comic retailer and they should be able to order it without a problem.

Although it did make more inroads into RPGs than it's Magic counterpart.

-Siege

Too Funny. Slayers D20 = the Lyons family.

Gaming & Anime no figure....I couldn't see that coming. Games about anime ussually scare me. I think that's when CP 2020 started going mostly anime style that I lost interest in the game. Anime games just don't do it for me. Actually 99.999% of all roleplaying games don't do it for me. The only roleplaying game I really play or run is Shadowrun, Paranoia, or Call of Cthulu (msp?).

I spend way too much time on SR, I don't have time for anything else. Well there is booze. There's always time for booze and ummm well I'll stop there......

isnt people complaining these days that sr is going the way of the anime?

I think that someone should make a d20 Hokuto No Ken game. That would rock. Fallout would have been better if you could Hokuto No Ken people.

and the same argument can be said for any rpg, the gm and the players have the final say as to what feel the world have...

Based on my recent experiences trying to run a D20 based game through an on-line format, people who only pay D20 RPGs are idiots. Everyone has played the game before (except one) and the only one who actually has a character is the one who has never played before. One of them even had a concept perfectly established, but couldn't take the time to roll some virtual dice. The others can't even seem to follow simple instructions.

From this example: Current D20 trends breed idiocy.

I've played SR (for about a years) and D&D (much longer), and conclusion is very clear- D&D can be fun, right, but I love SR- the rules, the magic system, the atmosphere! I can't find a single aspect, which are better in D&D than in SR (I have tried SR in a fantasy setting too)
SR as d20 is a very bad idea!